


The Tower in Reverse

by RubixaSeraph



Series: DMC Community Projects [1]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dadgil, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Reconciliation, Reunions, canon typical mild blood and gore, continuing a relationship, positive route and happy conclusions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26788444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubixaSeraph/pseuds/RubixaSeraph
Summary: There is no eternal damnationIn the face of Love.You can try to pull us down,But we will crawl back up from Hell.The Tower of the Major ArcanaUpright: Chaos, Upheaval, Unexpected Change, Disruptive Revelation.Reversed: Disaster Averted, Delay of the Inevitable, Resistance to change.The Dark Slayer once met a Lady Knight. And thus their fate did change. A tower built from their blind mistakes brought them both to Hell.But Fate can twist in many ways, and perhaps there’s still a chance: that love will tear down this construct of their own foolishness, and a family shall reunite.For DMC Week 2020, Day 1: Bone | Blood | Weapon
Relationships: Nero's Mother/Vergil (Devil May Cry), Vergil (Devil May Cry)/Original Character(s)
Series: DMC Community Projects [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953397
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	The Tower in Reverse

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to the first work for DMC Week 2020! This particular work does feature an OC: my interpretation of Nero’s mother. She is featured in many of my other works, but you do not have to read the other works to understand this short story. If you are curious, however, [Could Have Been a Fever Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23380945) describes how Vergil and Seraphina met, and gives a little more depth to the things mentioned in this story. And there is artwork of Sera and her Devil Arms.

He knew what he was going into. 

That’s what Vergil kept telling himself, over and over again. 

The garish hellscape, the constant need to be on his guard, the battle after battle after battle he will continue to fight…

Until he gets to Mundus. 

Though bitter that he wasn’t able to obtain his father’s power, his end goal did not change. He must beat Mundus. And he must continue to get stronger. 

Because without it… without power… 

He didn’t dare think about it. All that he was willing to leave behind, in order to obtain the power he sought. Because without power, everything was meaningless. What is the point of keeping anything close, if you didn’t have the power to protect it?

And Dante… Damn him, Dante. This would be less difficult if his foolish little brother would have just cooperated. If only if he had understood…

But, no. It was clear now that they would forever stand apart. From the moment they had been separated, they were fated to walk different and opposing paths, it would seem. 

_(And it hurt. Hurt so much. Too much. Enough to make him want to hate. Enough to make him want to tear his brother apart when he thought about it. A thought that he couldn’t care less about where it came from… the only thing he knew was that he wished he couldn’t feel at all anymore.)_

Vergil trudged on, trying his best to not think about all the pain and the hurt back in the human world. About all he had given up, and all that he had lost. 

Because there will be no safety for him until he has power. There will be no peace for him to never lose love again, if he couldn’t become stronger. 

So long as Mundus still existed…

His mind wandered to the what-could-have-beens. 

And he fought his own thoughts, squelched them down…

But then, he heard something. 

Demons. Screeching. Combat. And occasionally… yelling. 

Someone yelling in exertion, and the familiar sound of metal blades. 

_It couldn’t be…_

Against his better judgement… or perhaps, it was better judgement in hindsight, Vergil went in the direction the skirmish was happening, and witnessed the scene:

It took all of five seconds for him to recognize that form, though whatever she wore was frayed, torn, and caked in blood. She was worn and weary, but fighting with a fury that was unlike her, almost feral… 

But those weapons wound about her arms: the snake-demon-made devil arms that she used to wield elegantly as whips and swords, were unmistakable. 

_The Lady Knight Seraphina Valkyrie._

Why, why was she in the Underworld?

Vergil was shocked, and if he dared to put a word to the feeling in his chest, he was _distraught_. He had left her. Left her in Fortuna. Put distance enough between them, and he swore to himself that he wouldn’t so much as consider her offer of hospitality again until he had completed his mission. 

Did she follow him? No, that was impossible… but how…

The question of how and why she was present before him was tossed to the back of his head when Seraphina culled the last lesser demon before her, because what she stooped down to do next made him impulsively move forward: 

As he saw the elongated fangs she bore to bear down upon a carcass, his mind shouted _“No!”_ And he lunged, and teleported. It was almost a tackle, as he pulled her away from the demon corpse. 

Humans should not ingest the blood of demons. 

In blood, there was power, yes. And demons can thrive off of human blood. But demon blood was far from pristine, and few humans can mitigate or handle the side effects of trying to draw power from raw demon blood. 

Seraphina thrashed against his hold, and the heart that he tried to keep cold sunk. 

The whites of her eyes have almost turned completely black. Her once-beautiful blue-green irises were now pink, as if flushed with blood. Those fangs that he could see through her snarl suddenly reminded him of a night that felt so long ago, when she had bitten him so slightly…

She had drawn blood, then. Was there a purpose to it? But it wasn’t much… barely a few drops. And nothing about her became this feral scene in front of him…

And then he saw how mangled her body was. The human body did not heal the same way devils would, and there were even more scars on her body than when he last saw her while they were tangled in sheets. The most prominent one was a jagged long scar across her abdomen, from right below her ribcage down to her hip. As far as battle scars go, humans would not survive disembowelment… 

He could even see a bit of her bone below her right shoulder, and again, he was shocked at what he saw: where there should be bone, there was metal. He could tell it was not bone. It was even the same metal as the devil-arm gauntlets that adorned both her arms. 

Vergil then recalled that she had once told him: _they don’t come off, not entirely._

They were a part of her. They _were_ her arms, down to the bone, perhaps even further beyond her shoulders. 

But he knew without a doubt that she was human at her core.

The taste of her blood did not lie. 

Her flailing weakened, and the haze in her gaze seemed to momentarily soften, as she breathed out: “V…” 

Tears were welling in her eyes and she spoke the nickname she gave him in lieu of him never disclosing his true name. 

Vergil was scared. 

What was he supposed to do? He wanted to run away. This couldn’t be real. He swore that he would not see her again, let alone think about her again, until he was absolutely certain that his days of being powerless, hunted, and in fear were over. 

But Sera was crying, again. 

She was in pain. She was suffering. 

Was she dying?

And at that moment, he thought: _No, not like this. She wouldn’t die like this. She had always fought to her hardest. She wouldn’t end here…_

Back in Fortuna, he had allowed himself to be waylaid by surprise after surprise. And they all revolved around her. 

Would one more hurt, if it meant he could save her?

He stared at the fangs in her mouth, as she breathed heavily while tears continued to stream down her face. 

...Surely, if it was blood she needed, then his blood would do better than any of those miscreant lower demons, wouldn’t it?

* * *

He recklessly fed her his blood, and carried her away from the carnage. Finding safety in the Underworld was never easy, and there will never be a place that is truly safe. 

But he had to try. He would not tolerate wasted effort, now that he had found her, given her blood, and brought her with him. 

And so, for an indeterminate amount of time that passed, he checked up on her, and kept watch. Her fangs had receded since he fed her, and the whites of her eyes were slowly clearing up while the pink hue seemed to bleed away from her eyes, revealing her blue-green irises once again. 

The wounds she had received, especially the gnarly gash that was in her shoulder, slowly healed. Miraculous by human standards, and slow by demonic standards. But she would live. 

He listened until her breathing had evened, just like when he had once listened to her breathing as she slept. 

And he waited. 

While Vergil often practiced how to bide his time, patience was barely a natural inclination to him. Always, he felt that he had to force himself to be patient, and this was one of those times where patience was not coming easy to him. 

Perhaps it could be more accurately stated that, “waiting to see if someone will wake up” is not the same as “biding your time for the next move.”

And speaking of next moves… 

What would his move be, after Seraphina wakes?

He didn’t know. 

She needs to be brought out of the Underworld. And, theoretically speaking, where there is a way in, there is a way out. He’s a Son of Sparda, after all. The Yamato was in his hands, and with the seal between the worlds lifted, he should have a way out. 

But would she be able to leave without him? Would she be able to leave without asking questions?

Though they had an agreement in the past, that it was better to state that they will not answer instead of telling a lie, it was plain to see that this was not a situation where Sera might take half-truths. 

And what would she do, and what would she think, if she knew the truth?

Vergil dared to think pessimistically. She probably would not understand, and perhaps that would be enough for him to convince her to leave without him, once he figured out how to get her home. 

Time went on. His mind stewed with all sorts of possibilities, none of them positive. 

And finally, she stirred from her slumber. 

He noticed how her breathing changed. She did not waste time in shaking off her drowsiness. Pushing herself up from the ground, clearly stiff from such an uncomfortable sleeping arrangement, she stared at him with a veneer of calm, as if assessing her situation. 

“V?”

He could only nod once in response from where he sat, the Yamato laid out in his lap, ready to be drawn if something went south. 

Seraphina appeared somewhat weary as she took in her surroundings. They were currently camped out under some rubble of ruined underworld architecture. She tried to reach out towards him, and he did not like the implication that he was going to touch him. He lifted his head, and stared in a frozen manner that she was somehow able to read, and she withdrew her hand. 

“Where are we?”

An apt question. 

Having not used his voice in a while, it cracked in the beginning as he responded: “Hell. The Underworld.”

He could tell from her gaze that there was a moment of shock, perhaps even disappointment. And then, she lowered the gaze and continued: “I see… And you… you are here. Are you… real?”

How was he supposed to answer that question in a meaningful way? His silence gave her room to continue:

“Does this mean that we are both...dead?”

It dawned on him that she thought this to be the afterlife. A common misconception, and he was a fool to forget that she may believe so. 

“No.” Was his only response. 

“No…?” She whispered back, and moved into a crouch to get just a little closer to him. “Truly…?” She asked, reaching out towards him again. 

It was another query. 

She was always wary of his personal space. Would he allow her this, just to prove to her that they are, indeed, alive?

So he lifted one gloved hand, to hover below hers. And she flipped her hand palm-down, to lay it within his. 

He could feel how her hand was just a little colder than his. And he’s certain he could feel that his hand was warm. 

Satisfied, she withdrew it, yet the action was just hasty enough to make him worry at the reaction. Was she still hurt in some way? Did he do something he shouldn’t have?

“This is the place where demons spawn, and devils live.” Sera concluded. 

“That it is.”

Sera was contemplative for a moment, as she glanced down at her left hand and flexed it. Her right hand went to her abdomen, and brought Vergil’s attention back to the scar. 

“How are you here, Lady Valkyrie?” He asked, opting to be a little more formal about it. 

She did not seem to like being called as such, and he knew why. Mentally, he made a note that perhaps it would be better to not add to her distress. 

“I fell, I suppose.”

He raised an eyebrow at that, and she felt compelled to continue: “I was attacked. I was desperate. And… in desperation, the banishment I attempted against the demons did not go as planned. Not that there were ever any truly successful banishments the Order was able to keep record of and properly reproduce, but…”

Something concerned him about this story. “I mean no criticism against your skills, but I knew you as a capable knight. How did you manage yourself into a desperate situation?”

The way that her scent and her demeanor changed was subtle, but Vergil picked up a hint of fear in her. 

“I was… predisposed.” She dodged the question, which was odd in his books. Seraphina had always been a very straightforward person. She then added hastily: “V, I must go back. To home.”

Yes, that would be a primary concern for her, and he couldn’t fault her. Even the judgemental and somewhat skewed Order of the Sword and the City of Fortuna was better for a human being than Hell, no matter how exceptional she was. 

“Where there is a way in, there is a way out. However… I cannot guarantee immediate passage. I would have to… search.” He laid out the implications on the matter. 

She stared, contemplative yet again. And then, she asked in a hushed whisper: “Did you find what you were searching for?”

Ah, did he, indeed?

“No.” Was his plain and curt response. She did not need to know further on those details on how he had lost what he was searching for.

“And are you searching for it here in the Underworld?”

“Not precisely.” Again, a short response. 

She broke their eye contact, and displayed an anxiety he had never seen in her before: she wrung her wrists. 

“V, I… I must go back, the sooner the better.”

For the most part, he understood how she would want to leave. But the fidgeting, and the anxiety… this level of distraught was not something he’s seen in her before. And he cursed at himself for letting these words leave his mouth: “What ails you?”

Her movements froze, but only very briefly, as she appeared to have come to a decision. This decision entailed that she shifted herself from crouching so that she was sitting in a more formal manner on the ground before him. The fidgeting was held in check as she seemed to muster some sort of inner resolve in order to answer him:

“I must go back home as soon as possible. I was attacked when I was in a precarious position. And I need to go home to…” Her hands clutched at the torn fabric about her legs that might have once been a dress. 

Curious. Vergil suddenly realized that he had never once seen her in a dress before. 

“I must go back and check on my child. I hope… dear Saviour I do hope that my child survived…” 

Her breath hitched at this admission, and Vergil processed this information probably way too slowly. 

During his travels, whenever he could, Vergil kept track of the months and dates. It was important, because many things he researched into regarding the occult could be time sensitive, so he always needed to know the time and date. 

And thinking of the amount of time between leaving Fortuna up until he last was able to look at a calendar (right before the Temen-ni-Gru), It has only been a year and a half at most. 

Vergil suddenly had a thought: _So she was able to attain a sort of happiness in her life._

Love? Family?

All things he had lost, and would never be able to afford, so long as he remained weak. 

But while he silently wallowed in an emotion that he refused to identify as self-pity, Seraphina’s next words shattered his world:

“I didn’t even have a chance to check the child’s gender, when I pulled them from my body. I was prepared to die, risking my last moments on a banishment ward that may simply backfire instead. But I know one thing was for certain, V. I had no doubts about their parentage, and I will admit I had been utterly foolish with you for that one night. But still, I had hoped… to see you again.” 

While his gaze snapped up, hers remained cast down. And she continued to speak as if she expected his silence:

“I do not expect you to care, to acknowledge them. But I will care. And I want to go back. Alive, or dead, that child existed to me. And I will not stop fighting to go back so long as I live.”

The feeling that was welling up within him was a mixture between cold dread and also a hot flare. 

He did not want to accept this. Could not accept this. There was no truth that he could ascertain with his own eyes, the existence of this supposed child, save for the scar upon her abdomen. 

_I pulled them from my body_. 

He understood the implication, but what did it matter to him?

_(Everything. It mattered to him because she had said she was attacked by demons. It mattered to him because she was willing to forfeit her life to save her child. It matter to him because he was not there--)_

But since when was he good at dealing with the human aspect of emotions?

Abruptly, he stood, Yamato in hand, and he turned to leave. 

“No place in Hell is ever safe for long. Make haste.” Was all he said. 

He did not turn to check if she followed. He told himself he did not care. 

But he did; he fought the relief within him as he heard her stand and follow silently. 

* * *

For the first time since falling into Hell, Vergil lamented at being unable to keep track of time. 

How long has he been down here? Perhaps it was already a new year. Did his birthday already pass? (He could care less about celebrating, but suddenly the question of whether or not he was still 19 or if he had turned 20 yet felt relevant to the turmoil in his mind.)

And how long has he and Seraphina been moving forward in this hellscape?

She had been blessedly silent for a while, in terms of questioning. It was almost as if they had fallen back into the routine he unwittingly developed with her when he took up her hospitality. 

And when they were accosted by demons, she fell right into combat mode. 

They had, on a technicality, fought side by side before. 

And he kept a close eye on her. 

Now, she seemed to move with better purpose; less feral. And she did not once act like she wanted to drink the blood of her kills during these moments. 

He did not know what this meant. He only had suspicions that she had been desperate, and the lesser demons’ blood spurred side effects. 

There was also a headache building within him. This displeased him greatly. He was a Son of Sparda, a Devil, even if only by half. To be ailed by something as trivial as a headache felt preposterous.

But his thoughts continued to circle around one thing: _the child. A child. His child._

Again, words could not prove to him of this child’s existence, but the mere possibility of this child’s existence filled him with dread. 

The old mantra was recited over and over again in his head: _Without power, you cannot protect anything._

Fearfully, he asked himself questions he had sought to avoid the answers to. Answers that he forcefully shoved aside as things he must lose, and must give up, or order to become stronger: _What was he protecting?_

His shattered childhood that haunts him surfaced. 

_Where was his father, when they were attacked? (Away. Gone. Not there.)_

_Where was his mother, when everything burst into flames? (In the inferno. Searching. In vain.)_

_Where was his brother, when he needed him the most? (Saved. Yet gone. Separated.)_

And, to his own horror, a part of him called out his own hypocrisy:

_And where were you, when Seraphina was attacked?_

So the snake bites its tail. He had wanted Sparda’s power in order to do better, to do what his father could not. 

But instead, in all his attempts to follow and surpass his father’s footsteps, he followed his father’s foolishness like a blind worshipper. 

_Pathetic._

But with Sera down here, and the nagging worry about there being a child without their mother (he did not dare claim this child yet) in the human world, he knew he could not simply avoid this problem. 

Between his goals, and his honor, he constantly had to evaluate his priorities.

He did not know how much time had passed, but he could tell when Sera was beginning to tire. He felt that perhaps he was testing her patience too much with his silence, and something in him worried at upsetting her further. 

What was this anxious feeling, that he felt so acutely when she was nearby?

He did not like it. He wanted it to go away. He felt the only appropriate reaction to this would be to cut her out of the picture, so that he would no longer be burdened by this weakness. 

Yet, something within him also strongly protested. And he scouted for another place that may be safe for them to rest. 

“...I will find a way back for you.” He said, without prompt. 

And finally, Sera asked tentatively: “Will you come with me? Back to Fortuna…?”

He wanted to say “No.” He wanted this to be _simple_. 

And he grappled with the question: _What does it make him, if he turned his back on this… this situation?_

_But the danger… the risks…_

“We shall see.” Was the only answer he dared to give. 

But in his mind, he had already made a decision. 

* * *

Sera had dozed off. When she woke up, she realized two things: 

One, she was alone. 

Two, V’s coat was folded under her head for a pillow. 

The panic in her chest came and went. 

That his coat was still here, would surely mean that he planned to return, right?

But Sera didn’t awaken without purpose. Something woke her. Something in the air that felt suffocating: a palpable tremor from far off that felt inhuman, alien, but somehow unmistakable to her. 

For a long time, ever since she had acquired (through no pleasant means, nor was it on purpose,) her Ophidian Duet Devil Arms, she was able to sense, only vaguely, the presence and power of demons. 

At one point, an Order Researcher had told her she was sensitive to things of demonic nature. 

So, when she had first laid eyes on V, as he had walked past her during one of her off days from her shifts, she felt something from him. 

The rest of their interactions, starting from when she finally rid herself of the stupid “casual wear” dress that society pretty much forced her to wear when she wasn’t in uniform, was now history to her. 

Because there were more important things to look forward towards. To run towards. To hold close. 

For whatever battle raging on to be something that she could feel, was worrisome. 

And more concerning to her, was that one of the flares of power she felt was unmistakably V’s. 

She had never told him that she had this ability. She didn’t want to spook him, and quite frankly, she was much unlike the rest of her Fortunan brethren, and could care less about what made him different. 

Perhaps it’s a point of view fostered from having had an outsider for a father, and having been socially-outcasted no thanks to her grandfather of the Valkyrie Family. 

And, more than that, she was drawn to V’s capabilities. His sword skills were mesmerizing to begin with, and his strength was certainly phenomenal. Despite common sense, she offered him hospitality. It was simply meant to be a thankful gesture, at first. He might not have meant it, but he had helped her against demons, once. 

The infatuation that she did not keep in check was her fault… but again, history was the least of her worries right now.

If V had hoped or expected for her to stay put, then he clearly did not learn enough about her during the month they got to know each other. 

Lady Seraphina Valkyrie has been a rebellious little hellion since she was a child. 

Getting up, she took the folded blue coat and unfurled it. Though it was miraculously not stained in blood somehow, it was unmistakably a coat that someone wears regularly. 

She turned the coat in a flourish and adorned it over her own back and shoulders. It was big on her. V was taller than her, that was for sure, and if she had tried to put her arms through the sleeves, she would have had to constantly pull them up. 

Still, due to the nature of her weapons, she usually didn’t wear things with sleeves. Deploying her devil arms would just tear up anything on her hands and arms. 

With a bit of effort, she manipulated the metal within her shoulder area just enough so that she had clips of sorts to hold on to the coat. She didn’t want to tear it up in any way, and to fold and tie a coat this fancy about her waist seemed a little rude to the garment and its owner. 

Seraphina then wasted no time going in the direction of the bursts of power she could feel. 

It was not a comforting thought, when she realized that whatever she could feel from V was waning. 

* * *

As she drew near to the unmistakable signs of a battle, she suddenly felt something explode in the air. A wash of power, and the feeling of something shattering. Though she had been careful to remain out of sight from whatever might be patrolling (which, oddly, there was nothing left alive about…) the sudden wave of power being broken worried her. 

She arrived at the scene with her heart pounding. From behind the rubble, she looked up at the colossal being that she sensed massive demonic energies from. 

And she heard that being say: “How disgraceful, Son of Sparda…”

It was fixated upon the broken form of V, suspended by filaments of nasty make, while he was impaled by many shards of what must have been his foe’s attacks. 

The katana that he so loved was shattered. Broken. And it slipped from his grip, into the bloody pool below. 

Sera felt like she should have had some sort of… reaction to what she heard. The entity that had V captured continued on to speak of Sparda as a traitor, and his apparent entanglement with humanity. More pieces fell into place for her, yet none of them incited the kinds of feelings others may have felt at this news. 

She always knew he was different. What difference did it make, if his blood ties were with that of The Saviour?

It was no different to how the old head of the Valkyrie family was a mean and lying old coot. It was no different to how the outsider her mother married was still a kind and loving husband and father. 

It was no different to how, despite being thrown away by the Valkyrie family, she was still a knight of Honor, of Pride, of the things that once made the Valkyrie family respected. 

And V was still a somewhat self-righteous, solemn, skilled, and strong swordsman who was also an absolute _idiot_ : “I can still keep going.” 

_You are an absolute fool, to taunt the enemy while bound and weaponless._ Sera thought. And as the dangerous Devil reached towards V with words of “saving him from weakness,” a weakness that Sera understood to mean _humanity_ , she knew she had only one chance. 

They were already in Hell. 

She once already thought she was dead. Thought that they were both dead, to be in Hell. 

This was the one chance: Either she succeeds and they make it out to live another day, or they both perish. (That maybe, if their child survived, they would one day reunite. Or perhaps, they all meet in the afterlife…)

Her blades lashed out, and with quick maneuvers, she dashed forward, first grabbing the broken handle of the Katana. Then, she managed to get up to where V was. One of her segmented blades separated to cut through the filaments that captured him, and trimmed any of the impalements that were too long. The other bladed whip, she swung out to lash at the oncoming hand. 

_“YOU! VERMIN!”_ The Devil snarled as his dominance in the situation was threatened. “What do you think--”

Sera hissed at the Devil, with V held tightly in one arm (which was odd and difficult, considering he was larger than her,) as they both plummeted downward towards the pool of blood. She lashed out her weapon one more time, to cut into the large hand reaching towards them, as deep as possible.

 _“Fuck off._ ” She spat. 

And V, half conscious, reached towards the broken sword that was in the grasp of her hand that was circled about him. 

The sword reacted. 

She expected them to splash painfully into the pool below. 

Instead, everything about them suddenly distorted. She lost track of what exactly happened. They fell for longer than she expected, and everything went dark as she then felt the unexpected hard ground below her, along with the painful explosion of her ribs cracking and other parts of her bones and body blooming with pain. 

* * *

Vergil didn’t know how long he was out for. But he came to and noticed the shallow breathing that was coming from underneath him. 

Rarely did he feel such abject horror. Even when he had lain in bed, on a hard-to-forget night that had left him utterly baffled; even when he realized he had been used by Arkham, and when Dante had exceeded his expectations and also ruined his plans, he had not felt such horror grip him. 

Or perhaps, the last time he truly felt this kind of desperate pain and horror, was when he had been eight. When he had hoped death was not the result waiting for him when he made it back to the manor. When he had cried and shouted in vain for his mother, and for his twin. 

Aching, weak, yet filled with dread, Vergil collected himself to shift and move off of the body that was sandwiched between him and the ground. Seraphina was clearly in pain, and she had broken his fall…

Such a fall would not have killed him, even if her weight had been upon him. But that was not how things turned out. She most likely had more than just bruises, judging from how misshapen her ribcage was, and he didn’t dare think what became of her spine. 

His coat was soaking up her blood. It was somewhat sticky, in the process of drying. Not very fresh. So, he had been out for a while. 

But she was still breathing, laboured as it was. And under the starlight, he could see that her fangs had made an appearance again. 

Perhaps he was still dazed from the events that had just happened. Seraphina had ripped him from Mundus’ grasp. That meddlesome knight… he had it. _He had it--_

No. There was no use in lying to himself. He glanced over and saw the Yamato, broken in two. Somehow, another piece of her had arrived onto the wet and sandy shoreline with them. But she was definitely missing fragments, and he wasn’t certain if he could repair her. 

His father’s memento to him. A precious piece of his power, entrusted to him. _And he broke it._

Everything that he had done, to make it to now… was it all in vain?

His thoughts were as painful as the puncture wounds on his body. He winced as he dug and pulled out the offending things that impaled him. 

And finally, as his own wounds healed, he grabbed Yamato’s handle, and brute-forced the blunt and broken blade through his hand. Blood flowed. The pain was now something he was numb to. 

He gave his blood again to Seraphina. 

There was no denying that she had done what no other had been able to do for him: she had saved him from a fate worse than death. 

* * *

Hours later, Seraphina stirred awake. The sky was still dark and dotted with stars. A calm and comfortable scene at a beach that could have been counted as romantic if the “couple” in question weren’t bruised and bloody. 

Vergil had his back turned to her, but he could hear her stir. He was sitting in the sand, slouched with the remnants of Yamato in his grasp, as he gazed out at the ocean. 

Before he moved to this location, he had waited, and made sure that her wounds were knitting back together properly. Carefully moved protruding bones back in place, aligning her back, laying her body out so that nothing would heal weirdly. 

She clearly still ached, as she groaned while she moved. And he pointedly tried to ignore her as he continued to gaze out at the ocean. 

What was she going to do next? 

What should he do next?

And then, Seraphina came up behind him, and draped his bloody coat back around his shoulders. 

He dreaded it as she then circled around to sit down beside him in the sand. 

He prepared himself for the questions, but instead, she opened with: “So, you are related to Sparda.”

Of all the things that their conversation could start with, this was just as terrible. 

“A relation that means very little, with how little I’ve been able to accomplish.”

“And what exactly is it that you are trying to accomplish?”

“It matters little. I have my own path to follow. A battle I must win. We are back in the mortal realm now. In fact, I can feel the gate of Fortuna behind me. This is the Island of Fortuna. Go back home, so that I can continue what I need to do, and go back to kill Mundus once and for all. What I need to do does not concern you--”

“Does not concern me?” The sudden anger that laced her voice surprised him. He had heard her speak in anger and frustration before, but never directed at him. “With how things have gone, this has everything to do with me!

“When you told me that we were in the _Underworld_ of all places, do you know how _devastated_ I was, to have the thought crossing my mind, that we were _both_ dead?”

He didn’t see how exactly that would have caused her so much distress, until she continued her harrowing train of thought:

“Perhaps, it matters little to you. And I have stated that I do not expect for you to care. I did not expect to survive, when I went as far as to cut open the rest of my wound…” Her hand trailed to the scar on her abdomen. “But I still hold hope that my child… that _our_ child survived. But if we were both dead… if we both…” She choked over her words, and Vergil clenched his jaw, trying his best to only look forward, and not over at her. But he knew… knew that she was crying. More than crying in sadness, but in a sort of agony that could only be felt when the metaphysical heart was in pain. 

And he knew he would crack at the next words to come:

“I loathe to think that, before I ever got to hold them, they were parentless, with no one to answer to where they came from, or who their parents were! I may not have planned to become a mother, but I still prepared myself to love my child…”

“Enough!” He interrupted her, the pain in his chest was becoming unbearable. 

Seraphina remained silent, as he brought his gloved (and sand-covered) hands to his face, barely caring if he got sand into his eyes on accident. 

The feeling was becoming unbearable. The weight of knowledge, the agony of empathy that he did not want to feel…

He was already feeling the guilt gnaw at him. Every word was a chisel to his heart. 

“I…” His voice seemed to crack. “I cannot rest, until my father’s enemy is defeated. Until I complete my revenge on the Devil who burned my home, stripped me of my childhood, and took my mother’s life. I must do this. I must!”

“With what? A broken sword, a worn down body, and a clearly unsound mind?” Sera yelled through her tears. “I will not allow it!”

“You will not allow it?” Vergil almost laughed. Whatever emotion that welled out came out with a croak of amusement. 

“I will not.”

“And on _what_ basis do you have to deny me my vengeance?”

“How _can_ I let you?” At her tone, he couldn’t help but look at her now, her sadness and pain in plain sight before him. “How can I let you go, in such a state? How could I bear it, if you never come back, and one day, when my child asks me where their father is, I would have to tell them that I allowed him to leave to his own death?”

And again, the painful memories of a time long past resurfaced. Of when his father had left, without much of an explanation to his sons. Of the day the demons attacked. Of the fire, of the blood. 

He could only muster one question back to her: “If… if I told you, that being a Son of Sparda, that by simply _having_ his blood flowing through your veins, would make you an enemy of all demons… and sometimes even humans, fated to be hunted for simply existing. That everyone around you will suffer for it, and get hurt from it…”

“If you’re asking if I would _abandon_ my child for something like that,” Sera snapped, and Vergil thought he heard a snarl in her tone, like the lioness he had called her, some year or two ago, “I would never! _What kind of mother do you take me for?_ ”

Whatever words he had died in his throat. His mouth felt dry, and he could feel his heart thudding in his chest. 

Vergil can’t say that he’s ready to confront the reality of what to do with the existence of a child. But he knew with certainty that he owed Seraphina the courtesy of reuniting her with this child. 

No. 

Should this child still exist, he owes them the existence of their mother in their life. 

And as he lowered his hands from his face, exhaled, and closed his eyes to contemplate on these matters, he knew that he had a lot at stake here. 

While it’s true that Mundus was still an existing threat, he knew without a doubt what would be worse:

That he himself will not be there for this child, for _his_ child, would very likely result in the same kind of tragedy as when his own father had left him and his brother with their mother. 

That, in truth, this tragedy had already tried to repeat itself. 

With a shaky breath, he told her: “Let us go. To Fortuna. And afterwards… we… can talk.”

Before giving her answer, she shifted to be a little more closer, and took one of his hands in hers without asking. Bringing her forehead to the back of his hand, she spoke softly: “Thank you, V. And I know how much it hurts. I understand how hard it’s been for you. But you can’t throw your life away for vengeance. You have to live. Even if you slay your enemy, if you cannot survive past it, and live a good life afterwards, then the enemy might as well have won, anyway.”

To that, he could only silently give a half-hearted nod. 

Vergil, Son of Sparda, can’t quite say if he knew what living felt like anymore.

Perhaps the most alive he had ever felt, where he even had the most solid amount of meals per day since he was eight years old, was that later half of the month when he had gotten comfortable staying within Sera’s hospitality. 

* * *

Sneaking past the patrol was easy for the two of them. Sera was already masterful at climbing, and Vergil could simply use a few of his own tricks to get to where he needed to be. The Yamato, still broken in two, was stowed away by Vergil with a heavy heart. The devil arm was hidden away by being absorbed into his arm. Somehow, the Yamato had always felt _right_ being a part of his arms. Whenever he triggered, though he still liked the feeling of the physical weapon itself, he often felt like the weapon was truly a part of him. 

Sera had originally led him to her apartment. It was still in ruins, doors and windows boarded up. The wooden boards took little effort for Vergil to pry off, but one quick sweep of the place, even before Sera went to check the upstairs where she had been attacked, Vergil knew that there were no living beings left in this apartment. 

The stink of dried blood was also very old. 

It’s surprising that the community hadn’t demolished this apartment to rebuild. 

Her bedroom was a wreck. What was presumably her blood was all over the floor, and some of it stained the side of her bed. 

“...There’s no body here.” Sera said in a whisper, as she stared at the bed. “The blanket… the one that I stitched wards into. It’s not here as well.”

There was hope, then. 

“Your mentor…” Vergil recalled that she had a close relationship with her superior office, the Supreme General, and his family. 

“Leo!”

With hope in her exclamation, she dashed from the apartment. Vergil could not fault her for it, and could only follow behind. When they arrived at the larger and somewhat more secluded house that belonged to the Supreme General, Sera paced at the door at first, uncertain of how to proceed. 

Vergil, having never been good with social conventions to begin with, did not tell her which way to go on this matter. Eventually, she had to buzz the doorbell, and waited eagerly for the door. Vergil remained several paces away, knowing that he was technically unwelcome in this city, ironic as that may be. He could tell that her hand was trembling when she rang the doorbell. 

It did not take long before someone came down the stairs, turned on the light outside, and cracked the door open. 

“Who is-- Sera!” General Leo, whom Vergil had only seen once or twice but pointedly dodged and never interacted with, opened the door several degrees wider when he realized who was at the door. 

“Leo--” Sera almost sobbed at the sight of her mentor, and at one time, her warden who took care of her when she was a teen. 

But Leo was an attentive knight. He was not the Supreme General without some habit of taking in everything in the scene. He looked past Sera, and saw Vergil several paces in the background, lingering but clearly observing the scene unfold. 

“Seraphina, who is the guest behind you?”

Immediately, Sera beckoned towards him: “V…” She called softly, and her voice tapered off as she probably realized she still didn’t have his true name. Vergil took half a step forward, and then hesitated. 

Did he truly belong here, at this moment?

But Leo looked at him, and something in his gaze seemed to recognize him, which was unsettling. The Supreme General commanded with a soft tone: “Both of you. Inside. Now.”

Seeing that it was beyond the point of rejecting the notion, Vergil followed Sera inside. Leo closed the door, and immediately turned to Sera. It was something amusing, the Commander of the Holy Knights, still in pajamas, asking Sera with all the severity in his question: “What happened. Where _were_ you, Seraphina Valkyrie? Saviour, you look like you crawled out of--”

“Hell?” Sera supplied. “It was hell. Literally The Underworld. We just escaped from The Underworld.”

Before Leo could even press for details, a female voice asked from the staircase: “Is that Sera? Oh, Saviour, is that Sera?” 

Vergil recalled that General Leo has a wife named Nova. They also had two kids, but right now that was not pertinent information. 

“Oh, Seraphina!” Nova rushed over to hug the lady knight, but Sera dodged her and tried to reason with her: “Nova! I’m covered in demon blood and sand and… I’m not clean!”

But that didn’t stop the woman, as she pulled Sera into a hug. “Blood, sand, it doesn't matter. Clothes can be laundered or replaced. But _you_ , you can’t be replaced, sweetheart. We’ve been so worried, and the babe--”

Sera pushed Nova away, but not too harshly, as she tried to break out of the hug to ask immediately: “Where are they?”

The older woman’s eyes widened. “They? Oh, Saviour… were you not able to so much as hold the child before you disappeared? You have a son, sweetheart. A healthy babe, all things considered. He’s safely at the orphanage--”

“The--”

It almost looked like Sera was going to bolt again, and if Vergil were being honest, even he did not like the sound of the child being at the orphanage. (Another part of him felt faint. Blood rushed from his heart to his head, as the pounding sounded in his eardrums. _A son._ )

“Seraphina Valkyrie!” This time, it was Leo who snagged her by the arm before she could leave. “Rest easy. I don’t quite understand the details of what happened, but breathe. Breathe, Sera. You’re back now. You’re back, and I understand the orphanage is the last place you’d want your child to be at, but since you had been so hard-pressed to keep your pregnancy a secret, the orphanage was the only place the child could be placed. I had… I had thought, in the worst case, if you had not returned after a long enough time, Nova and I would take him in… but everything is fine now.” He reassured her, soothed her as best he could. “You’re back. And Nero has been safe. It’s the same orphanage Nova looks after as their nurse on call. He’s fine, and just one more night is going to be fine. You can’t go knocking down the orphanage doors before it’s even dawn yet, my friend.”

Taking this advice, Sera took a few deep breaths, before finally latching on to an important detail: “Nero…”

“You never quite picked out a name. The Orphanage had to call him something…” Nova consoled. “All he had was the black blanket you left him in. But fret not, it’s only been a year. You still have the right to give him a new name.”

But as Sera calmed down, and thought about it… she remained silent. 

And a thought bubbled up to the surface of Vergil’s mind. Prone to musing out loud, he spoke before he could stop himself: “Nero. For black? Ironic, as I daresay he would be a very… pale… child…” As he realized he spoke out loud, he stiffened uncomfortably as everyone’s attention focused on him. 

Thankfully, he was saved from immediate questioning by an interruption from a barely school-aged child slowly climbing down the staircase: “Mom? Dad? What’s going on?”

Immediately, Leo turned towards his son, and scooped the child up before he even made it down the last three steps. “Everything’s all right, Credo. Your aunty Sera just finally came back from that very long mission she went on. She needs rest now, okay? Come on, let’s get back to bed.” He glanced back at his wife, before heading back up the stairs with the child. 

And so, Nova cordially turned to the two of them: “Let’s get you two each cleaned up, shall we? And maybe something to eat, while I clear out our guest room?”

* * *

Vergil had to admit, a shower was absolute heaven. And the fish soup was a good choice for a first meal out of Hell. Not that he really needed it, in his opinion. As a half-devil, he seemed to subside just fine on absorbing red orbs from demons and devils that he laid waste to, and he did not quite starve. But Sera certainly needed a warm and proper meal. 

The guest room, as it turned out, was of course a room with a single bed for two. Leo did offer to bring down a cot from the attic, though Vergil had immediately responded with: “I do not require sleep tonight.”

He was going to then argue that a couch would suffice for the night, but Sera was the one dashed that thought: “We still need to talk.” She said with finality. 

Vergil didn’t miss the way Leo and Nova glanced at each other. 

He could only respond in agreement, knowing that he owed it to her: “Very well.”

It was a difficult conversation. They spoke until sunrise. She coaxed from him, his story. The start of his nightmarish life that had been going on for a little over a decade. 

He did not want her pity. She did not give him pity. Instead, she gave him understanding, and she gave him everything he did not think he deserved, yet had always wanted:

“I know it’s hard. And I know things will only get harder. But with the Yamato now broken, I think there is more you could do while seeing if you can repair her. I know how dangerous Mundus is, and I understand that anxiety and frustration you have regarding his continued threat upon you and everything you love… but there is nothing to fight for if there isn’t love, V.” As she said those words, she drew him into an embrace that he never thought he would feel. “You don’t have to be alone. No one can get through life and its obstacles alone. It doesn’t matter how strong you are, being alone is what breaks a hero.”

Vergil had always known that he did not have the makes of a hero. He was no hero. Just a shade bent on revenge. And he could only tell her as much: “I’m not a hero, Seraphina. I’m simply an abandoned child. But I will not make that same mistake again. I still have to get stronger, but I cannot do what my father did. I will stay. I won’t leave… even if you are not interested in a relationship, at least allow me to stay close enough to…”

And she cut him off by leaning her head into his shoulder, almost nuzzling at his cheek. 

“If you would stay, V, then we will have you. I will have you. We can work it out.”

Finally, with the golden glow that was beginning to show at the horizon, Vergil realized he had something very important to tell her:

“Vergil. My name is Vergil.”

* * *

Sleep was never something that came easy for him. But he did try. Still, he woke a little past noon with nightmares of flame and fire again. But this time, he had woken Sera beside him. And the lady knight, _his lioness_ , soothed his wildly beating heart and his frayed nerves. 

With just this little bit of amity from her, Vergil couldn’t help but feel something bubble in his heart. Something in the back of his mind needles at him on how he needed to protect this, of how he wasn’t going to be strong enough to keep moments like this safe from going up in flames. But he quashed those thoughts for now. 

He would have to consult her, at some point, on this matter. But that matter was not now. 

Leo had taken a day off today, and waited for his guests to wake, it seems. When they had made it out the guest room, with Vergil having simply refreshed his clothes that were made from devil’s power to begin with, and Sera in a somewhat ill-fitting dress she’s borrowing from Nova, Leo informed them that Nova had checked on the orphanage today, just to soothe any worries Sera might have. And in turn, she explained to him the little there was to explain, of her being attacked, to how desperate she was, and how she attempted to expel the demons at a cost.

Nero was well. Leo told her that he could accompany her, or perhaps them, to go see the child. And, being the Supreme General, it wouldn’t take too much for him to request that Nero be released back into Sera’s custody. Paperwork be damned. The orphanage can question it all they want. He didn’t care if this might feed into the rumors of how he favored his best knight.

A child should be with their mother. 

And this, he told her with confidence, so that she would stop worrying about “consequences.”

Leo even had a spare set of Sera’s uniform stowed away. Her’s was a custom make, for her weapons meant she had to forego sleeves. As she finished getting ready, and waited for Leo to be ready for departure, she asked Vergil tentatively:

“If you… given the choice, if you had to pick a name…”

He thought about it, with a rare tilt of his head. “Nero… does not have to just mean black. It can also refer to power…” He then nodded. “It’s a good name, if you are happy with it.”

And true to Leo’s word, he did not give the orphanage much room to argue. There was a small amount of paperwork to fill out, but the Supreme General did not allow for the Orphanage to try and keep the process difficult. Beyond that, when Leo managed to convince Vergil that he ought to come in with them, the orphanage workers could not deny the situation. Even if they might question Sera’s validity as the mother, they could not deny this outsider’s resemblance to Nero as the father. 

And Vergil was a tightly wound nervous wreck who tried his best to not show it. 

Yet, somehow, the moment Nova was able to bring Nero out to them, the sight of the child opened a set of floodgates to emotions that he didn’t think he had. 

Paperwork was temporarily forgotten to the side, and even Leo had hushed the orphanage administrator from interrupting the moment of reunion. Sera received the wailing child with tears in the corners of her eyes. And when Vergil got close to gingerly run his thumb against the child’s cheek, Nero stopped his wailing, and slowly began to stifle his hiccups, too, as he stared up at them both. 

Before long, he was giggling and reaching up towards his parents, and Vergil couldn’t help but whisper to Sera: “I won’t leave you again. I won’t leave either of you again…”

Eventually, relieved to have their child back, Sera handed Nero over to Vergil, and told him she’ll finish most of the rest of the paperwork. When it came to the moment to fill out the blanks on the birth certificate, she wrote down the date of birth that she knew by heart, and glanced over at the calendar for today’s date, which was nearing the end of March.

“One year. Exactly one entire year…” She said, almost reverently. Leaning over, she said with equal measure of joy and regret: “A whole year that I was not there for you. But, happy birthday, Nero.”

* * *

They spent three days in the hospitality of the Supreme General. Leo fielded any curious questions about rumors of Sera’s return. There were actually very few inquiries. Somehow, her missing had been mostly covered up. This had been a small point of concern, but Sera did not care to want to get to the bottom of it, so Leo dropped the subject matter. 

Young Credo was ecstatic that his Aunty Sera was back, and having been familiar with how his younger sister Kyrie came to be, he assumed that after Sera finished her mission, she was away because she was having a baby. Though the details don’t all add up, it was enough to placate the six-year-old, and he will remain none the wiser to the truth of the matter. 

On the third day, Sera said: “I don’t think I can stay in Fortuna, to raise Nero.”

Nova was the first to protest at this, and Vergil even said to her: “But this city is your home.”

She shook her head. “I can’t even begin to explain to anyone about the events that happened. And there are few facts that cannot be skewed. I had a child out of wedlock. Even should we stay, you are an outsider to these people. I… I can’t subject Nero to a similar kind of ridicule that I grew up with.”

And every adult present in the room understood what she meant. 

“Besides…” She sighed, and said cryptically: “This city would drive you crazy, wouldn’t it? If you stayed here with me.”

Leo and Nova were not privy to Vergil’s heritage, but it was not something they would pry into. 

Vergil thought about it. It was true. He could not fathom staying in Fortuna for the long term. Not without fighting upstream to manage to insert themselves into this society. There was too much to tear up and rebuild if they wanted to live comfortably within this society. 

But where, then, could they go?

Vergil tried to think of a place that would feel like home. And all that could come to mind was the now burnt-down mansion. 

Though a house could be rebuilt, he also knew in his heart that a house is never a home. 

So, what was home?

Home was… with his mother. His father. And his brother…

The idea crept into his mind like a dandelion. A hardy little blossom that took root, bloomed into a bright yellow flower, and transformed into a dream-like puff of wishes. 

He hated it, but he had to admit that there was hope in those wishes. 

* * *

Mid-April, Dante was wallowing in his office, contemplating on spending the rest of his money on booze for the night. 

He hated this date. Hated this stupid day that others would celebrate, but he could not. 

What was the point, when the person he was supposed to spend the day celebrating with was gone?

It’s been about twelve years.

Again, there will be no more birthday gifts; no more celebrations, or fights over chocolate cake. No mother. No father. No brother. No home. 

Just him and his empty pizza boxes and bottles of whiskey. 

He didn’t even bother to tell Lady, his sort of new friend, that it was going to be his birthday. She probably wouldn’t really care, anyway. He was half-devil. He hardly thought she would want to celebrate the birth of something like him. 

But then, something prickled at his senses. Something familiar. 

He glanced at the first bottle of whiskey that he only had a single sip from. The sun hadn’t even actually set yet, as the day was turning to dusk. He can’t be buzzed yet, could he? Or has he been drinking this whole day and got smashed but didn’t realize it?

But his mind felt clear, and the beating of his heart was too heavy as he felt the presence get closer. 

No, there was more than just that familiar feeling. There was something else, also. Calm, healthy, but very very small. 

Someone knocked at his door. Dante grit his teeth. 

There was no way… there was no way this was going to be something good. 

So he grabbed his guns, and flung open the door so hard that it nearly came off its hinges. He felt an anger course through him, as memories of every past confrontation came to mind. There was no way this wasn’t going to start without a fight:

“Ya got some pretty big cojones for coming back, Vergil! What happened to ‘Hell was our father’s home,’ huh? What is it this time? You want to fight me for the Force Edge again?” Though in truth, none of this was really what he wanted to say to his twin, Dante didn’t know what other way there was to communicate with his brother anymore. 

Their relationship was rowdy when they were children. But since the separation, they had not been able to see eye to eye, or speak without venom anymore.

He didn’t expect for Vergil to mince words. Dante prepared to shoot for the moment Vergil would draw the Yamato. 

But the blade did not come. Calmly, Vergil said simply: “Dante.”

“Yeah? What do you want?”

“Your help, if you would.”

“My help? With what? You trying to raise another tower in a bid for more power again, huh?”

“I…”

The hesitation suddenly threw Dante in for a loop. And then a hiccup sounded from behind Vergil. Finally, amidst his agitation, he took stock of the situation about them, and noticed that just a few paces away, a fair-haired young woman was soothing a toddler. 

The toddler hiccuped again, and Dante had to lower Ivory to stare at the bright eyes staring curiously back at him. 

He could pick out the unmistakable features of relation in the child. 

“Vergil, what is--”

Having the habit of motioning at things with his gun, Dante was momentarily shocked as Vergil grabbed his wrist and prevented him from doing so. “I have your attention now? Good. And I would urge you to put those obnoxious weapons away. If you so much as fire a shot, I don’t care if the Yamato is broken or not, I will end you with my bare hands if you hurt them, do you understand?”

For the first time in years, Dante felt cold sweat. He had to comply, wide-eyed, as he tried to digest this information. “I must be drunk. I have to be. There is no way my twin is actually back on my doorstep, with, with a _kid_ and…”

He gulped. That woman had to be the child’s mother, right? So, his brother’s wife? Wait, does Vergil even care about things like a marriage?

And the woman, seeing how disastrous this entire interaction was panning out, sighed in amusement, and said as she walked towards them: “You two are both a right mess, aren’t you?”

Dante had never seen Vergil abashed before. But if he were to be honest, he was feeling pretty abashed, himself. 

This woman was not a shy creature. As she came up to the door, she smiled at him, and then shifted the child in her arms. Before Dante knew it, she was handing him the child, while saying: “Look, Nero. Say hi to your Uncle Dante.”

“Sera…” Vergil clearly wanted to protest this action, but Sera just smiled and ignored him by settling little Nero into Dante’s hold, adjusting his limbs and telling Dante how to hold the tyke. “There! Look at that. And he’s not crying at all. I think he’ll like you.”

“I, uh…” Dante glanced between the beaming Sera and the somewhat nervous Vergil, before glancing down at the kid in his arms. Nero, now free of hiccups, grinned up at Dante with a toothy smile. 

Cripes, the kid was adorable. Finally scrambling his senses back together, Dante stammered as he moved aside from the door: “I, uh, I think we should all come inside, yeah?”

Is it still considered a birthday present, when your twin drops by your shop unannounced with a family you didn’t know about?

That was something for Dante to wrap his head around later. 

And it would become something he would tease Vergil about in the future. 

There was a lot to still figure out for the future. Such as how they were going to fix up the Yamato, what they were going to do about Mundus, and more pressing than that: How anyone was going to raise a child…

But that is all a story that will continue its own course, now that a family was reunited. 

Devil May Cry will start to look like a proper family business. 

**Author's Note:**

> \- I pulled the scene of Vergil’s “capture” from V’s nightmare from Visions of V.  
> \- Drinking age in the UK is 18, if google is correct.  
> \- In case anyone is curious, Vergil and Dante are turning 20 at the date described at the end of the fic.


End file.
